


a body is a life, a body is war

by PaperRevolution



Series: outer-space mover [13]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Slurs, Transphobia, Underage Sex, backstory angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 14:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15776439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: Space AU. How the boy Ecthelion came to be Turgon’s Lieutenant, and how he shed his past.





	a body is a life, a body is war

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in March and am only just getting around to posting it now. It’s a bit of a departure from previous chapters and can be considered a kind of prequel (it elaborates on events discussed in “when you listen”.)
> 
> Warning for transphobic and homophobic slurs used by characters. Warning for content revolving around dissociation and intrusive thoughts.

i.

my ticket costs nine imperial credits, which is nearly three quarters of my savings. it will get me as far as any of the blue sector belt planets, which are i guess at least the perfect kind of places for a scrappy fourteen-year-old kid to find work without anyone asking too many questions.

i don’t think too hard about what kind of work that might be. i don’t want to stay long. just long enough to save up a bit of money, and then i’ll move on. somewhere better. somewhere safer.

that’s about as far as my thinking-about-the future goes, right now. i’ve always been bad at that. my neighbour (ex-neighbour, now!) D, who likes to seem profound, said once that this is because i am clearly depressed, and what use would a suicidal boy have for imagining the future?

D is wrong about me. i think, anyway. i don’t think i’m depressed. most of the time i feel more scared and angry than sad or numb or whatever.

but i’m getting away from myself. where were we at? me, buying my ticket; boarding the shuttle.

it’s my first time travelling long distance. the attendant asks where my parents are, and i tell her they’ve separated and i’m going to spend a few cycles with my father. she asks if i’m scared and i shake my head no, even though my heart’s pounding like it’s trying to smash its way out of my chest. i guess i must look nervous (gods damn) because she tells me that lift-off can be rough for first-timers and asks me if i want to sleep through it.

i tell her no, thank you. i hope i manage to sound polite, because in my head i’m yelling NO WAY NO WAY NO FUCKING WAY.

then the safety announcements start, and my palms start to prickle.

i can hear the other passengers whispering to one another beneath the sound coming from the overhead speakers. their voices rustle and scratch up against each other and even though i can’t hear any of the actual words i get a weird feeling like something’s crawling around under my skin. lots of little somethings.

i breathe out, slow, and look at the steady bluish lights above my head. i can’t, i can’t freak out now, so i sing to myself in my head as loud as i can, not actual words just la la la la la’s. the kind they make you do for warm-ups before recitals or exams or whatnot. (i am what my mother calls “musically inclined”. like everything else half-decent about me, she likes to grab onto this; to brag about it to her friends. “my daughter, you know, she’s musically inclined. very gifted.” my daughter. i feel sick. la la la la la la.)

i’m so focused on trying not to lose my shit that i don’t realise we’re taking off until it’s already happening. glass pods come down over each of us, locking us in place. then we bullet upwards, and my stomach flips and my breath snags but i don’t care because, oh man, oh gods, i’m suddenly not thinking of anything except the motion and my body and all the weird things it’s doing right now, like it’s telling me in its own fucked-up way that it’s okay, you’re here, you’re real, this is happening to you. this is a now; it is your now, and you are really in it.

we pick up speed. my stomach clenches warningly, but i swallow the acid taste in my throat and push the feeling down. i keep my eyes open, the whole time we ascend.

 

ii.

when the shuttle spits us out onto strange new ground under a strange new sky, i have been away from home for a total of twelve days, four hours and i’m not sure how many minutes. my mother will be having a drink or seven with D’s mother and telling her i’ve gone off to stay with relatives or something, probably. my father will be at work. (if something terrible hasn’t happened. you’re not there, so how would you know? how can you prove they exist, if you’re not there? you can’t. and they can’t prove you exist, either. what if you aren’t real? what if none of this is real and it’s all just—)

no. no no no no no no NO. breathe. (if you’re breathing, that means you’re real. but what if it doesn’t? what if it’s all some kind of big trick? hold your breath, then, you dumbass; that’ll soon tell you whether it’s an illusion or not. that’s stupid; you don’t need— yeah, yeah you do. you need proof).

proof is a weird word. hard p, rolled r, long o, soft f. one of those one-syllable words that still somehow manages to feel disconnected.

i hate it. proof. i hate it. i hate it.

i pull in a breath and hold it. stand very still.

i stand there ‘til my chest feels tight and full. ‘til my ears are ringing a bit. ‘til—

“oi, kid. are you gonna move?”

i swear i jump about fifty-bajillion feet into the air.

“sorry!” i make myself move forward. my bag bounces against my back. i need a map, i tell myself, trying to get it together. i need a map.

 

iii.

“hey! freak!”

i square my shoulders and keep walking without looking back. i push open the door that leads to the stairway and slip through, letting it slam shut behind me.

a couple of seconds later, the door clicks open.

“hey! hey, dyke! i’m talking to you!”

i remember the way she’d watched me bind, as we were getting dressed the first morning after i got here. i remember the way she smiled, and the whispers that came after.

she laid out my reputation for me before anyone even knew my name. her and the others, they made sure everybody in this gods-forsaken town knows what i am.

i could turn around and smack her in her stupid mouth, but she’s been here longer than me and i kind of need to keep this job. but i could. how many clients would she get with a busted lip and a broken nose? she’d be stuck with all the ones who like it rough, and it would serve her fucking right.

it’s a horrible, disgusting thought and it shocks me. if i’m capable of thinking those kinds of things, then—

no. no no no.

please, no.

i shove open the door to the room we all share. three of the girls are lounging on their beds, talking. their voices crash into each other like, i don’t know, like metal things banging together. they laugh, not quite all at the same time, and i feel like something’s breaking in my head. 

i reach my bed in the corner and sit down. 

she bursts through the door like a tidal wave.

“hey! stop ignoring me, weirdo! Mrs Y says you’ve got a client. he’s waiting in the front room.”

the others stop talking and look at me. i can feel them wondering what the hell anyone would want with someone like me.

i could tell them, if they really wanted to know. i could tell them that i get the ones who want to smash out their hate on a too-thin mattress in a soft-lit room. i get the ones who rage at themselves and at me the whole time. this one guy got me to beg for him to hit me. he mashed up my nose and Mrs Y got in a massive mood because she doesn’t like people damaging her livelihood, or whatever. she got some woman she knows to patch me up though and he hasn’t been allowed back again, so i guess that’s good.

i stand up again. i’m already bargaining with myself, inside my head. every time, i lose a bit of myself and i’ve got to do everything i can to stop that from happening, or else one day there won’t be anything left.

 

iv.

while he gets dressed my heart goes mad, beating thwap-thwap-thththwwap against my ribs. i feel wrong and—i don’t know, just wrong.

i lie on the bed and look up at the ceiling and i think, you’re okay. you’re still here. you’re still you.

only i don’t believe it because my head feels wrong and my body feels wrong. i know if i can remember something from Before—remember it whole; remember it perfect—then i’m okay. i’m still me.

i pick a conversation from last week and, while he’s looking for his socks, i get started.

 

v.

the next morning, while i walk down to the docks, it comes back to me for, i don’t know, it feels like the millionth time: that feeling of being wrong. of being not the same person i was. of being Less Real.

don’t be an idiot, i tell myself. i try to think about now-stuff, like the sharp wind blowing my hair back from my face. i have my headphones, which should be helping, but they aren’t really.

i have to focus. on the memory. on the conversation. i have to get it right. i have to get it word-perfect. for proof.

i have t—

something smashes into me from my left side. hard. my stomach flips. i go flying and hit the ground, also hard. my headphones come off and clatter to the cobbles.

their voices collide so fast SO FAST freak weirdo dyke tranny gonna break your face words words all full of sharp kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk roaring roaring breaking—

i force myself to stand up. i know these men. i know their faces but i can’t—i can’t think. everything’s too loud.

i swing for the one closest to me. my fist hits something soft and i think maybe he grunts in pain. then they’re all on me and i’m kicking punching biting yelling but it’s not it’s not enough it’s not enough there are more of them and they’re bigger and the loud is getting louder kkkkkkrrrRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKK—

 

vi.

“by the docks, five against one, can’t believe—“

“—put up a good fight, though, did you see—“

“—careful. watch what you’re doing—“

“—see the boss man? he was fucking furious. it was great—“

“—looks bad. don’t know how—“

i try to lift my head, but it feels like something sharp’s stabbing me repeatedly in a bajillion different places and i can’t—i can’t—

maybe i make some kind of noise, because suddenly i feel them all closer around me.

“kid. hey, kid. can you hear me?”

i feel my noise tearing at the back of my throat but i can’t make it into words.

 

vii.

the man is tall and thin. he has a sharp kind of face, with a nose that kind of reminds me of a bird’s beak. a big bird of prey. he is dark-eyed and dark-skinned. he sits on a chair by my bed and he has what my mother would call “nice posture”.

don’t let them have called my parents. please please fucking please don’t let them have called my parents.

“you were very lucky,” the man says. “we don’t think there will be any lasting damage.”

i try to nod my head, but it hurts too much. how long, i try to ask him, but my voice comes out in a tiny wordless croak. i try again: “how long?”

“eleven days. you did wake up briefly a few times, but you weren’t coherent. we kept you sedated, because we needed to keep you immobile; you had some internal injuries which were taken care of as soon as you were stable enough for our medic to operate without too much risk.”

oh.

i look up. i swear i can hear the hum of the fluorescent lighting and it makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

“we located your family,” the man says.

i hear myself let out a small, wordless noise.

“they will not be coming,” he tells me. his voice is grave. i don’t know if this is because they refused or because they said something so gods-damn offensive that he told them to stay away.

“oh,” i say, out loud. my voice is small and scratchy and does not sound like my voice. 

he sighs heavy. “we need to leave for port sirion in three days,” he tells me.

i blink at him. “so?”

“i would like you to come with us, if you’ll agree to it. you are a fighter.”

i can’t make sense of this sentence, so i just stare.

“who are you?”

he smiles for the first time, thinly. then he says:

“the resistance.”


End file.
